Ted Danson

An ingratiating actor who projected an air of easygoing charm in both comedic and dramatic roles, Ted Danson reigned at the top of the television ratings heap for over a decade as Sam Malone, the loth...
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Ted Danson is going from crime scene investigation expert to small town sheriff after signing on to star in the second season of the Fargo TV adaptation. Last month (Dec14), Kirsten Dunst was cast in a leading role as a beautician in season two, opposite former Breaking Bad star Jesse Plemons, who will play her husband.
Now producers have revealed CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star Danson and the Watchmen's Patrick Wilson will also take on major parts, with the Cheers veteran playing Hank Larsson, the Sheriff of Rock County, Minnesota and Wilson portraying his son-in-law, former Vietnam War veteran and State Police Officer Lou Solverson.
The upcoming 10-episode season will be set in 1979 and serve as a back story for Solverson, the character 65-year-old Keith Carradine portrayed in season one.
Frasier's Jean Smart, Parks and Recreation's Nick Offerman, Brad Garrett, Kieran Culkin and Jeffrey Donovan will also be among the new Fargo cast.
Screenwriter Noah Hawley will return to pen the second season and executive produce with Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed the hit 1996 film the series is adapted from.
Production is due to begin in Calgary, Canada later this month (Jan15).
The acclaimed first season featured Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Hanks and Martin Freeman.

Alongside a record degree of mediocrity, the 2014 Primetime Emmy Awards also marked a few records in some of its top competitive categories. Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston took home the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series trophy last night: his fourth for the role of Walter White. With this latest achievement, Cranston has tied one Dennis Franz, who has held the record of four Best Dramatic Actor Emmys solo since 1999. The milestone begs us to look back through other Emmys records: Which stars have the most wins? The most nominations? And, perhaps tragically, the most nominations without a single win?
This bittersweet superlative goes to none other than Angela Lansbury, who never quite nabbed that trophy despite 12 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nominations as Murder, She Wrote star Jessica Fletcher.
NBC
Not only does Lansbury claim ownership of the most nominations without a win, she also has the most nominations period in any acting category. Alan Alda, Ted Danson, and Kelsey Grammer have all earned 11 nominations in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series category (for M*A*S*H, Cheers, and Frasier respectively), and Mary Tyler Moore snagged 10 Lead Actress in a Comedy nominations for her eponymous sitcom. As for supporting categories, David Hyde Pierce has taken 11 nods for his work on Frasier, while Rhea Perlman and Loretta Swit have each earned 10 comedy nominations (Cheers and M*A*S*H).
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Potential spoiler warning: Widespread disagreements have spawned in regards to what constitutes a “spoiler” re: The One I Love. The following review details the general premise of the film, as per what I consider to be fair game. However, some other writers (who I respect quite a bit) have insisted that revealing such information would be giving away the movie’s principal twist… which, in my defense, occurs very early on in the movie. Use your judgment and proceed with caution!
RADiUS-TWC via Everett Collection
You can practically hear a bright-eyed Mark Duplass shouting, “Here’s an idea!” when you latch onto the beginnings of The One I Love — the real beginning, past the nothing-out-of-the-ordinary setup that introduces Duplass and Elisabeth Moss as a married couple whose relationship has gone sour. On the insistence of their counselor (Ted Danson, who singlehandedly saves the first chapter of this film from succumbing to the doldrums, and then disappears far too soon), the pair take vacation in a remote cabin allotted for the mending of fraying love affairs. Then, the “idea!” kicks in — Duplass and Moss are thrust into a fantastical realm/psychological allegory in which each is faced with the perfect version of one another. Like, in addition to the real versions. Clones. There are clones.
…But, to reiterate, strategically idealized clones, and ones that work to serve any number of the hypotheticals entertained in marriage counseling, couples arguments, or simply inside the head of somebody who considers what he or she might wish to change about the person sleeping six inches to the right.
RADiUS-TWC
However, The One I Love fails to make the most of its interesting, dense concept. While it should spend its time playing with the psychologically, sociologically, and philosophically rich premise that it cooks up for Duplass and Moss, the movie gets distracted by the busy work of keeping the fantastical functions in check, of paving its story with a thick layer of mystery, and begging the audience to wonder how they’re gonna get out of this pickle!
Sadly, that’s not where the real meat of The One I Love lies. With the promise of a riveting examination of the mindset behind wishing your own husband or wife was different, smarter, nicer, more attractive, in better shape, a better cook, or simply like he or she used to be, we set up for the very idea that must have gotten Mark Duplass’ heart racing in the first place. But when the movie decides that it'd rather be thrilling, enigmatic, and riddled with twists than an honest human story, its appeal fades away, And far too soon... just like Ted Danson.
3/5
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"Mary won an Oscar about the same time Bill Clinton became first-term Governor (of Arkansas) and they became great buddies... He gave her away at our wedding... They really are, like, Mary's best friends for so many years." Actor Ted Danson on his friendship with the former U.S. leader and his wife.

"I went to bartender school right beforehand and I got good, I passed, and then I realised after meticulously making these drinks for the first month that they didn't give a damn about the drinks, they wanted the jokes, so from then on I washed shot glasses and cut limes." Ted Danson admits his years as a TV bar owner in Cheers have not made him a good cocktail creator.

Veteran TV producer Robert Halmi, Sr. has died, aged 90. Halmi, Sr. passed away of a brain aneurysm at his New York City home on Wednesday (30Jul14).
He was a freedom fighter in his native Hungary and was once captured by the Nazis, jailed and sentenced to death. He managed to escape to the United States in 1951, and began his career as a photographer for major magazines including Life, Sports Illustrated, True and Outdoor Life.
Halmi, Sr. founded his production company, RHI Entertainment in 1979, and went on to produce more than 200 TV shows, including hit 1990s miniseries Gulliver's Travels, starring Ted Danson and wife Mary Steenburgen, The Odyssey with Armand Assante, Merlin, and The 10th Kingdom.
Although he only has one Emmy Award to his name for Outstanding Miniseries for Gulliver's Travels, the combined total of wins for all his projects comes to an impressive 136 Emmys and 480 nominations.
He was honoured with a Peabody Award for his body of work in 1998.

NBC Universal Media
Next fall, NBC will air The Biggest Loser to its Thursday night lineup, giving it the 8 PM slot. Once football season ends, the network will put its only true hit from this season, The Blacklist, at the 9 PM slot on Thursday. Why is any of that news? Because it means that for one of the few times since 1983, NBC will not air a block of sitcoms during the 8 - 10 PM timeslots.
NBC's Thursday nights has been the home to some of the biggest hits and most influential sitcoms in history, and while the network's programming strategy might make business sense it's hard not to feel a little sad at the end of what became one of the medium's few constants.
The Beginning
The Peacock first experimented with the idea of grouping sitcoms on Thursday during the 1983 - 84 season with a rotation of shows that included fare like Gimme a Break and We Got It Made… but it also included a pair of building blocks that would provide the basis for what was to come.
The following season in 1984, NBC debuted its first classic lineup on Thursdays with holdovers Cheers and Family Ties, paired with The Cosby Show and Night Court. The formula of two smart family sitcoms during the 8 - 9 PM hour and then two slightly more adult oriented sitcoms between 9 - 10 PM wasn't new — CBS did the same thing throughout much of the '70s — but the quality of the four shows was so good that it was hard for the grouping not to standout.
NBC's success on Thursdays — particularly with The Cosby Show, which at its peak was averaging nearly 30 million viewers a week — propelled the network to its first standalone win in the season ratings since Nielsen started keeping track in 1960.Cheers and The Cosby Show anchored the night for the rest of the decade until a little show about nothing came along to keep the ball rolling.
In its early days, Seinfeld bounced around the NBC schedule in search of a home, sometimes airing after Cheers. When the Ted Danson sitcom finally ended in 1993, however, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David's creation was ready to take over.
Seinfeld and Friends
Seinfeld, Mad About You, and starting in 1994, Friends became "Must See TV." For most of the next decade, Friends and Seinfeld were such strong ratings winners that they could carry a variety of weaker shows (Caroline in the City, Suddenly Susan, Veronica's Closet, etc.) that followed them. The pair of New York-based sitcoms became so iconic that Friends generated a fashion sensation as women rushed to have their hair styled like Rachel and Seinfeld fans quoted the show so much that phrases like "Master of your domain" and "No soup for you!" became part of the cultural lexicon.
When Seinfeld called it quits, the Cheers spinoff Frasier moved back to Thursday to stabilize the night for a couple of seasons until suitable replacement could be found. NBC found that replacement when it turned to a show about a group of friends far different from Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry and company: as Friends started to wind-down, the night became the domain of Will &amp; Grace. The sitcom about a gay man and his female best friend (Eric McCormack and Debra Messing), along with their two flakey cohorts (Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally), provided the network with another hit to build around.
Beginning of the End
When Friends came to a close, NBC's Thursday lineup went through a period of flux. The first signs of trouble began when Scrubs had difficulty finding a larger audience, despite being well received by critics. With ratings dropping, The Apprentice spent time in the 9 PM Thursday slot, as did Deal or No Deal.
The comedy lineup reemerged, however, in 2007 when Tina Fey's 30 Rock joined The Office, My Name Is Earl and Scrubs to form one more stellar block of sitcoms. By 2009, Community and Parks and Recreation had joined The Office and 30 Rock, but as smartly written as the group was, ratings never quite rebounded fully.
By this past season, when only Community and Parks remained and were grouped with the now canceled Welcome to the Family, Sean Saves the World, and The Michael J. Fox Show, the writing was on the wall. With not much more than The Big Bang Theory, CBS easily defeated NBC's offerings. With CBS' announcement that they would air NFL games on Thursdays in the fall, it became clear that NBC was going to have to counterprogram to keep from being trampled.
At some point, NBC lost its touch and patience for building sitcoms like Cheers, Seinfeld, and The Office... none of which was an immediate ratings success. That's too bad, but instead of lamenting the network's inability to come up with suitable sitcoms, it's better to sit back and marvel at the decades of comedy success that NBC managed to pull off. It was a heck of a run while it lasted.
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Lionsgate
A cameo can play as a nice little Easter Egg that tucks itself into a movie. All of a sudden, a film treats you to a surprise appearance by one of your favorite actors. But then there's another person. Well, two eggs is still a pretty reasonable dish. But if the movie keeps piling them on, if can feel like you've eaten a whole basket full of them and boy does your stomach ache. There are some movies that get the recipe right and some who just overstuff themselves and spoil the entire meal.
Possibly in the "Ruined It" camp we have the trailer for They Came Together. There's a cavalcade of familiar faces that come in to support the Paul Rudd/Amy Poehler vehicle. We see people from Saturday Night Live and many Fox and NBC comedies, as well as Chris Meloni and Cobie Smulders. It got to the point that trying to guess who would be showing up next took precedent over following what the movie was about. That can be seen as a big detraction, and it remains to be seen how it might help or hurt the movie when it hits theaters.
Others in the "Ruined It" category: Saving Private Ryan. This really gritty movie opened with a scene visceral enough to make WWII vets leave theaters due to flashbacks. It was a realistic, immersive movie that opted for genuine emotion over hokey war movie stereotypes. Well, until a character portrayed by Ted Danson showed up and started shooting Nazis. "Wait... is that Sam Malone? What's next, Carla Tortelli smacking a Nazi with her serving tray?" A very poor casting choice in an otherwise stellar film.
When it comes to successes, though, we can look at movies like those in The Expendables franchise. People sit through the movies wondering what great '80s or '90s action hero is going to make an appearance. It's icing on the cake of the over-the-top feel of the films (which are riddled with scenes and people punching each other bloody). There's an almost satisfied sigh when a Chuck Norris shows up.
Additionally, a well-placed cameo can lift up the entire mood of the film: Sean Connery appearing at the end of Robin Hood, and all those superstars at the end of The Player (which was supposed to be about making a movie with a lot of no names).
Too many cameos and a movie risks actually turning people off. Without at least one recognizable person on the screen, you might never hook 'em in the first place. Like many things that come out of Hollywood, it's a guessing game as to what will or will not be successful.
Just see how full one's Easter Basket is at the end of the movie.
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Cast in a recurring role on the NBC drama "The Doctors"

Appeared on the HBO comedy series "Bored to Death" opposite Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis

Cast as Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who took on the Boston Archdiocese in Showtime's "Our Fathers," an adaptation of David France's epic book about the sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church

Cast as corrupt billionaire Arthur Frobisher on FX's "Damages"

Screen acting debut as the sad-eyed, bagpipe-playing cop in "The Onion Field"

Starred in the A&E movie "Knights of the South Bronx"; earned a SAG nomination for Best Actor

Returned to series TV with the short-lived CBS sitcom "Ink"; co-starred Steenburgen

Taught acting at the Actors Institute in Los Angeles; also performed managerial duties

Landed a supporting part in the ABC TV-movie "The Women's Room"

Joined season 12 of "CSI: Criminal Scene Investigation" (CBS), taking over Laurence Fishburne as the new CSI supervisor

Received star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (November 10)

Cast in a recurring role as himself on the HBO comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

Played regular role on the NBC daytime drama "Somerset"; acted with Sigourney Weaver and JoBeth Williams

Co-starred with Drew Barrymore in "Big Miracle," a drama centered on a campaign to save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle

Co-starred with Tom Selleck and Steve Gutenberg in "Three Men and a Baby"

Appeared in Joseph Papp's Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of "Comedy of Errors"

Starred opposite Glenn Close in the TV-movie about incest "Something About Amelia" (ABC)

Stage debut as understudy for the off-Broadway run of "The Real Inspector Hound"; later assumed role and toured with play

Cast opposite Isabella Rosselini in "Cousins," a remake of the 1975 French film "Cousin, Cousine"

Executive produced (also starred) in first TV-movie, "When the Bough Breaks" (NBC)

Re-teamed with Lawrence Kasdan for "Mumford"

Delivered strong dramatic turn in the Showtime miniseries "Thanks of a Greatful Nation"

Moved to Los Angeles

Starred opposite Macaulay Culkin in "Getting Even with Dad"

Played title character in the award-winning NBC miniseries "Gulliver's Travels"; Steenburgen appeared as Mrs. Gulliver

Breakthrough television role as ex-baseball player and bartender Sam Malone on the popular NBC sitcom "Cheers"

Summary

An ingratiating actor who projected an air of easygoing charm in both comedic and dramatic roles, Ted Danson reigned at the top of the television ratings heap for over a decade as Sam Malone, the lothario ex-pitcher-turned-bartender on the hit sitcom "Cheers" (NBC, 1982-1993). The show's popularity translated into occasional film work for Danson, most notably "Three Men and a Baby" (1987) and its 1990 sequel. But it was the small screen that offered him the widest variety of projects, from a father accused of incest in the television movie "Something About Amelia" (1984) to Jonathan Swift's famed explorer in "Gulliver's Travels" (1996). None of his subsequent attempts at a series matched "Cheers" in terms of popularity, but he found some of his best roles guest starring as himself on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO, 2000- ) and the first season of "Damages" (FX, 2007- ), on which he played Arthur Frobisher, a manipulative CEO desperately trying to fend off a ruthless prosecutor (Glenn Close). Thanks to that role, Danson enjoyed a return to critical acclaim while opening doors to other projects, including the HBO comedy "Bored to Death" (2009- ) and the long-running hit series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (CBS, 2000- ), making him a more viable performer than ever before.

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Role

Comments

Cassandra Coates

Wife

Met in "est" training in 1976; Married July 30, 1977; In 1979, while giving birth to their first child, Coates suffered a stroke; Danson spent several years caring for her and helping her recuperate; Divorced June 3, 1993

Met while co-starring in the romantic comedy "Made in America" (1993); rumored to be the cause of his divorce from Casey Coates-Danson; Goldberg defended Danson after he performed a risque monologue in black face at a 1993 Friars Club Roast in honor of her, provoking some guests (i.e., talk show host Montel Williams) to walk out ; Broke up in 1994